Warning: some spoilers below! I usually try to obscure them, but I really wanted to talk about some of the juicy content in the later parts of the book. Do you avoid reading reviews with spoilers for books you haven’t read? Let me know your opinion in a comment below – I’m curious!

Drowned Ammet is the second book in the Dalemark quartet, with a whole new cast of characters on the opposite end of Dalemark from those in Cart and Cwidder. In Cart, we were introduced to Dalemark, divided into a seemingly peaceful North and unjust South, and into smaller Earldoms within. In Drowned Ammet, we meet one of the cruelest Earls up close and actually see the revolution starting to boil. Chronologically, Drowned Ammet occurs slightly before Cart and Cwidder with perhaps some overlap, which we can mark by the capture of Konian and Kialan (though they are not mentioned by name), the latter of which we know escapes and joins the traveling party in Cart.

In Ammet, we get the contrast of rich and poor to an even greater extent than we saw in Cart, with some perspective added with a changing POV between Mitt and Hildy/Ynen. We begin by following Mitt as he grows up outside of the town of Holand in a home full of laughter – he’s just a toddler at the start of the story. I wondered for a moment why Jones made the choice to spread the narrative out over so many years, but I know it was a good one. Seeing the “life before poverty” allowed us to really sympathize with Mitt and his parents, which we may not have had we opened with some of their more violent actions. Plus, it brought home how needlessly cruel the Earldom could be.

DWJ also gives us the opening line teaser to help us through the slow paced beginning – “People may wonder how Mitt came to join in the Holand Sea Festival, carrying a bomb, and what he thought he was doing. Mitt wondered himself by the end.” So, plenty of action and conflict promised. Interestingly, Mitt carrying a bomb through the festival happens just a third of the way through the book, so not too much is given away at the beginning.

As this opening suggests, the first section of the book is about why Mitt feels so inclined to blow up the Earl and bring his (perceived) enemies down with him. Diana does a wonderful job in creating Mitt as a self-assured, brave young boy who will fight for what he believes in with (literally) no thought of the consequences.

In contrast are Hildy and Ynen, grandchildren of the Earl. Their every want has been fulfilled, and they are numbed to the violence their grandfather wreaks, hardly realizing what a death sentence really means. Hildy is upset at her betrothal to an older man she’s never met, and Ynen perhaps ignored, but they have no sense of danger or urgency to fight that are Mitt’s every waking moment. While one can sympathize with Hildy’s prudent rationalism and bouts of anger, Ynen is really a favorite. He’s one of the few genuinely nice characters – you can’t help but love him.

Continued from Cart is the theme of disintegrating parental relationships. Hildy and Ynen don’t think much of their father, who never seems to do anything important – though readers see Navis’s quiet power and virtue. Mitt loves his mother, but from a young age realizes she’s a shopaholic who will spend their precious money away if he doesn’t take charge. He can’t quite look up to her from this position. Later, he sees that her lack of foresight extends beyond money, to the point that she doesn’t realize the plan she’s hatched may well end in Mitt’s death.

The aforementioned juiciest bit, in this regard, was Mitt’s encounter with Al. Stuck in a boat out at sea, he meets this coarse, unlikable man he learns is the one who succeeded in killing the Earl (where Mitt failed). Like Mitt did at first, he terrifies Hildy and Ynen. He is quite hung up with the class differences between himself and Mitt and the Earl’s grandchildren. Mitt hates Al, and hates how much they have in common.

Then, in a twist that took me by surprise even though I had read the book before, Mitt learns that Al is his father, who he thought was killed years ago. Mitt’s world is turned upside down. This is the man he sought to revenge? This man who (it turns out) ratted out his friends, leaving his wife and child alone and in danger? Worse yet, Mitt sees every sign of himself growing up to be just like Al, who went behind back after back to get the most money from shooting Earl Hadd. This moment of internal crisis was well set up (though in DWJ style, dropped on us with no preamble, Mitt not even flinching), providing a perfect turning point for Mitt to digest his own actions and figure out his own identity, current and future.

Though everything up to this point was well done, it is worth reading to the end just to get to Part 4, the Holy Islands. In a lovely hint at the beginning, which also served as a plot point, a small Mitt wanders away from home following a sudden extraordinary smell.

The smell was cow dung and peat and trampled grass, mixed with smoke from the chimney. … Beyond that was the smell of fresh things growing – cow parsley, buttercups, a hint of may, and strongest of all, the heavenlike scent of willows budding. While, at the back of it, there and not there, … was the faint boisterous bit of the distant sea.

… It seemed to him that he had got an inkling of somewhere unspeakably beautiful, warm, and peaceful, and he wanted to go there. Yes, it was a land. It was not far off, just beyond somewhere, and it was Mitt’s very own.

He recognizes the smell, years later, when he arrives in the Holy Islands.

The islands are a magical place, homey and powerful. Particularly strong is the uninhabited Holy Island. There, he encounters the divine beings he knows as Old Ammet and Libby Beer, who he recognizes from their appearance to save his boat from sinking. There’s some interesting comment on religion, here. In Holand, the people celebrate the Sea Festival, centering around Old Ammet and Libby Beer, though no one remembers why or what it means – only that it’s very lucky. Ammet is simply a straw man, and Libby a sculpture made of fruit. In the Holy Islands, though, these beings are present, and revered. Holand, godless, is a violent and terrifying place, while the aptly named Holy Islands are peaceful and welcoming.

Mitt also learns the importance of names that was featured in Cart. He discovers the true names – greater and lesser – of Poor Old Ammet and Libby Beer, the utterance of which can be enough for a whole new island to spring up and split a ship in half. He discovers that he himself is revered, for having the same true name, Alhammitt, as Old Ammet, and for arriving “on the wind’s road, with a great one to guide him behind and before.”

Mitt promises to return to the islands, which Old Ammet tells him will be delivered into his keeping – I look forward to Mitt’s return.

2 Responses

Spoilers in reviews… I’m afraid my opinion won’t be very helpful… The answer is yes and no. Sometimes I find that reviews are too vague and I can’t get a feel for the book without some spoilers. Sometimes I want everything to come as a surprise as I’m reading. I’d say, so long as a review is clearly marked that it contains spoilers, I don’t mind it… I just may not read it! If it takes spoilers to truly get at how good the book is, then I’d rather the spoilers than to pass the book by because reviews made the book sound boring.

For many books I read, I have read nothing about them beforehand. I always thought I liked not to be biased going in. But sometimes knowing how awesome someone else found a book can make it really compelling. So also yes and no, haha. Thanks for your answer, this makes sense!